


Hideous Laughter

by canibecandid



Category: Critical Role
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Not Beta Read, friends helping friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:33:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23860861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canibecandid/pseuds/canibecandid
Summary: There’s a lot of work to do before Traveler Con; cloaks to sew, spells to time with music, dancing, and statues.And with his background of working in a graveyard and having seen many different types of dicks, Caduceus figures he’s the type of support Jester needs right now.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	Hideous Laughter

**Author's Note:**

> It ain’t a good work, but it’s an honest one.

Caduceus is carving dicks or, rather, giving the dicks some variety. He’s buried people his whole life, what’s a little education between clerics anyway?

It’s slow and patient work, almost methodical, in making these offerings to The Traveler. A false god. 

He chuckles, carving more clay, and Jester pauses in her ramblings. 

“What? What are you laughing at?” Her violet eyes are wide like tea saucers and her tail flicks back and forth mischievously. 

“I’m having idol thoughts about false idols and idol shaped dicks.” Jester huffs and returns to carving, pouting as he grins slowly. “You have to admit, it’s pretty funny.” He laughs again, turning back to the clay and the many phallic shaped images of the cloaked figure. 

Jester required some work, Caduceus figures, to really get to those layers. 

Past the charm and boisterous confidence, to the quiet moment of panic that seems to linger in the edges of her gaze. 

“Jester.” He pauses, she doesn’t. “Jester, are you okay?”

“Oh yeah, I’m fine!” Her voice pitches and cracks in the way that it does when she doesn’t want to lie. He hm’s and haw’s for several moments. 

“Forgive me, but I don’t think I believe that.” 

She flushes violet. “I said I’m fine, Caduceus. I don’t need any healing, and I could always do it myself if I did.” Her voice trills slightly, something that trembles on the edge of being infernal with how it hisses and pops. 

“This isn’t about that type of healing, Jester.” 

She does stop at that, and she looks down at the idol in her hand. “Oh?” It comes out as a squeak, barely above a whisper. 

“It’s okay to be not okay, sometimes.”

“I know that.”

He draws back, rolling his shoulders, and he forgets how small she really is next to anyone but Veth. 

“Do you? ‘Cause it seems to me that you’re real good at taking care of everyone else, and real bad at letting others take care of you.”

She doesn’t respond, he hadn’t expected her too. So he calmly keeps carving, even as she keeps turning the same idol over and over in her hands. 

“Caduceus?” He looks up and raises an eyebrow. He sucks in a small breath at the welling tears that sit on her lash line, threatening to spill over. “Do you ever feel like a joke?”

It’s a question that has many answers. 

Yes, when she teases him and calls him Duces. Or when his siblings prank him relentlessly. 

But not when it comes to the Wild Mother, his faith in her or the care she brings. He looks at the squished statuette in her fist. 

“I thought jokes were supposed to be funny.” She sniffles. “I thought he was a god. I thought he was my friend.”

And really, what is he supposed to say to that?

He takes the clay out of her hands and brings her into a hug. She shudders and shakes as she cries, tears turning to small patches of ice that cling to his fur before melting. He just rocks her back and forth, almost with the sway of the boat.

Eventually the tears subside, and she blushes violet at the small shards of ice that are still melting.

“Sorry, Caduceus.”

“Nah, it happens.”

She sits down next to him, tail curled around her, and picks up a hunk of clay. Staring at it, and it’s the quietest and most still he’s ever seen her.

“I think-“ he stops, goes to start, and stops again before finding his footing. “I think that he was a man who enjoyed the gifts you gave him and in return gave you gifts.” 

She turns to look up at him and he can see where the crystallized tear tracks had formed and left her skin raw. His hearts ache a little for her. 

“Beau is right, in her own way. You made him what he is now. In some ways, you created him.” He gestures towards the statues. “You gave him a- a spark of hope and delight that flourished into something truly spectacular. Just really great.”

He forms a regular statue of the Traveler. Just a hooded figure, hand stretched out. “You were lonely and I think that he was, too. Doesn’t make it right. Doesn’t mean you can’t be hurt. But it doesn’t mean that he wasn’t the friend you needed at that time.” 

He then forms a new shape, a different one. A little tiefling, hand outstretched and holding the tiniest of little paint brushes in the other. 

“You reached out and he reached back.”

He hands Jester the carving of herself and she hesitates before taking it and holding it in her lap. “Probably not as nice as something you would have done up. More of a cook myself.”

Jester smiles and sniffles, fingers brushing over the carving. “It’s perfect, just the way it is.”

He stands up, staggering slightly before finding his balance with the boat. 

“Hey Caduceus?” He looks down in time to see Jester launch herself into him, wrapping him into a huge hug. “Thanks.”

He pats her head, minding her horns, before returning the embrace.

“Not a problem, Jester.”

She sits back down and her tail flicks back and forth as she settles, but she looks up once more. 

“Team cleric?” 

He smiles. “Team cleric. Always.” 


End file.
